Jonathan Djanogly has welcomed the Government’s announcement that schools in Cambridgeshire will receive £20.5m extra funding in 2015/16 to address an historic unfairness in the way school funding is allocated.

This money is part of a proposed £350 million boost to the most underfunded local authorities. It represents a huge step towards removing the unfairness in the school funding system.

These proposals mean that local authorities that receive unfairly low amounts of funding such as Cambridgeshire will have a significant boost to their funding. Based on indicative figures, Cambridgeshire will see a long-awaited increase of around 7% to their schools’ budget.

That will increase Cambridgeshire’s per pupil funding rate from around £3,950 per pupil per year to £4,225 per pupil – an uplift in 2015-16 of £275 per pupil.

Jonathan Djanogly said:

“The school funding system that we inherited from Labour is unfair. It is a postcode lottery that results in pupils attracting very different levels of funding without good reason.

“As part of our long-term economic plan this government is determined to deliver the best schools and skills for our young people so that they can get the skills they need to get on in life. This announcement is great news for schools throughout my constituency as it represents a huge step towards removing the unfairness in the school funding system; something that I have been campaigning on for many years.

“However, this extra funding will not apply until 2015 and many schools in my constituency are saying that they cannot wait until next year for a fairer funding system. I raised this point with the Minister in the House of Commons today when the announcement was made and I will continue to lobby Ministers on the issue of immediate funding relief for our schools.

Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con): This is welcome news for Cambridgeshire. As my right hon. Friend knows, Cambridgeshire receives less funding than anywhere else in the country. That has been really showing in our schools, which have been reducing their teachers and struggling under this unfair funding formula. In the past 10 days alone, 750 of my constituents have signed a petition calling for immediate support. I ask my right hon. Friend to look kindly on Cambridgeshire when he comes to administering his £350 million pot.

Mr Laws: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I compliment him on the work that he and other county MPs in Cambridgeshire have done to raise the issue. I know that there is real anger in Cambridgeshire about the fact that it has been left as such an unfairly underfunded authority for so many years. I hope that schools in that area will welcome the uplift. The increase on which we are consulting would take the per pupil funding in Cambridgeshire from £3,950 to £4,225, which is an increase of around 7%. That is a significant uplift for its schools.